


Nesting

by TheHufflebean (SevralShips)



Series: Snape Dies In the Prank AU [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hormonal pregnant Lily has a lot of feelings, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, OSOS sequel, Professor Lily Evans Potter, Professor Remus Lupin, Remus is the goodest dude, Snape death aftermath, Snape dies in The Prank AU, Uncle Moony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-15 00:03:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19283938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevralShips/pseuds/TheHufflebean
Summary: A few months following the end of 'The Other Side of Sorrow', Lily is pregnant, James is out of town, and the Potions classroom is in need of tidying. Also, Remus is getting ready to be the best Uncle Moony ever.A character study/meditation on Lily’s relationships with James, Severus, Remus, and (sorta) Harry.[Contains serious spoilers for 'The Other Side of Sorrow']





	Nesting

**Author's Note:**

> This is by no means essential to the plot of 'The Other Side of Sorrow', but I kept being drawn to the idea of a character study of Lily at this moment in her life. I don't know how to write anything angst-free but this is pretty low stakes and Soft compared to OSOS, so enjoy practically the closest to fluff I can get!

_18 February, 1980_

  
  


Lily rolled onto her left side and groaned as the baby fussed, landing a kick soundly on her bladder. She laid one hand over the considerable bump, as if that would help, and said quietly to her rounded belly, “Oi, settle down, please, won’t you?” As if in answer, the baby adjusted again, and Lily made a mental note to knee James in the bollocks when he returned home in a few days time. Clearly, their unborn child had inherited his impetuous attitude and he ought to pay for it.

She kicked off the tangled blankets, suddenly feeling much too warm despite the winter chill that slipped in through the drafty windows of their little house in Hogsmeade. Propping her head up on one hand, she considered the moon out the window. The striped curtains were limned with silver by the light of the waxing gibbous sinking low in the sky, so near to full that it was almost perfectly round. She frowned. It would be full three nights from now, and she’d have to remain human while the boys scampered around like giddy puppies. She had been making Remus the Wolfsbane Potion since September, and was more than happy to do it, but she’d expected the fox to be romping around once a month with them. _It_ might _be fine,_ she considered for the millionth time, drumming her fingers over her belly, knowing she wouldn’t risk it. In the male-dominated world of wizarding academia, in the still rather foggy topic of human transfiguration, Lily had been unable to find even one account of the effects of an Animagus changing their form while with child. Curious as she was, she didn’t fancy the idea of being the one to discover that it caused pregnancy complications, and though she’d always been an animal-lover, she would rather deliver a healthy baby come July, not a healthy fox kit. She knew James had been right when he had reasoned that it was probably an unnecessary risk.

 _Easy for him to say,_ she fumed, grumpily, swinging her legs out of the bed and wincing at her sore ankles as she walked to the loo yet again. This whole making-a-person-with-your-body thing was just unnecessary risk upon unnecessary risk, swaddled up in worries and aches and inconveniences. She had stopped trying to keep track of how many times she urinated a day, it seemed she spent more time on a toilet than off of one. As she washed her hands, she wondered at how she was going to stand another four months of this lunacy. _Hopefully being a mother suits me more than being pregnant,_ she thought, _or this kid’s in for a rotten childhood._

Lily left the lavatory and was about to climb into the bed when she thought better of it. According to the clock on the side table, it was already four in the morning, and she was unlikely to get any more sleep at this point. Instead she padded into the kitchen and set the kettle on the hob to boil the muggle way. Maybe it was just nostalgia, but she was of the opinion that it tasted better if you made it naturally. Lily sat heavily in one of the red kitchen chairs, her lower back protesting at the hard seat.

This month had been harder. The first couple months she’d hardly felt different, apart from the nauseous mornings and the welcome lack of menstruation. By the previous month, she’d grumbled a little at having to spell her skirts and trousers to be stretchier. But this month, suddenly pregnancy had started living up to its reputation of being about as fun as second puberty wrapped up in a stomach virus. The little bean in her belly had apparently opted for a growth spurt. Suddenly a stretchiness charm wasn’t going to do the trick, her old clothes unable to cover her swelling belly. The skin was itchy and tight and she felt self-conscious and silly when she’d catch herself running her fingertips along new stretch marks or frowning at them in the mirror.

Of course, James had been home the previous month and that had helped. He’d just grinned at her, amazed and adoring, even when she was unfairly cross with him about how bloody easy his part of this whole making-a-baby endeavor had been. The Appleby Arrows had advanced another round in the preliminaries however, and they owed it in great part to their brilliant new Chaser, and like the stupid, supportive wife she was she’d given him her blessing to travel with the team. The baby, it appeared, had taken some inspiration from its dad’s rigorous Quidditch training regimen, and had begun emulating it by practicing his loop-di-loops just whenever Lily began falling asleep and jogging on her bladder whenever it bloody well pleased.

The kettle started singing and Lily poured a cup of herbal tea, the fragrant steam and the ritual of it soothing her rattled nerves before she’d even taken a sip. “Sorry, little one,” she said, resting a hand on her tummy again, “Your mummy’s not always such a killjoy, I promise. Your dad thinks he’s going to be the fun parent and I’m going to be some sort of stern tyrant, just because I’m a professor and all, but he’s wrong.” the baby gave a small, almost intangible movement, but Lily smiled into her sip of tea, “I knew you’d understand. I’m the fun one, even if his job is cooler.”

Lily drank her tea, watching the sky outside gradually lighten. Her stomach grumbled hungrily, but she knew better. She’d have to ignore it for a while; eating so much as a piece of toast at this hour would have her puking in minutes. She sipped her tea slowly, trying to focus on the week ahead of her, the various topics being covered in her classes. Her thoughts lingered for a moment on a Hufflepuff second-year, who she suspected was doing other students’ homework for them, judging by the three essays on Swelling Solutions she’d received in nigh-identical handwriting. She thought about her N.E.W.T.-level students, one of whom, a Slytherin named Hemera Watts, was clearly buckling under the pressure of her course load, and whom Lily might have to pull aside and try to help if that look of mania around her eyes didn’t go away soon. She thought about one of her favorite students, a precocious fourth year Ravenclaw, Bayana Odaga, who she suspected might be trying to become an Animagus, considering some of her in-class questions and some ingredients that had gone missing from the storeroom. Lily chewed her lip, wondering if it would be better to confront Bayana herself or consult Minerva.

 _I ought to do it myself,_ she thought, standing up, restless, _Minerva has enough on her plate._ And she did. McGonagall was still serving role of headmistress and Transfiguration professor, as well as Head of Gryffindor house, and her hair had gone considerably greyer in the months since Dumbledore’s death. She was seeking a new Transfiguration professor, and Lily knew that Remus, like herself, had offered to take over as House Head, at least temporarily, but McGonagall was loath to part with that particular title. As it stood, Lily couldn’t imagine either she or Remus would be nearly as effective in putting the fear of god into the hearts of disobedient Gryffindors, not if their varied success as Prefects were taken as any sort of indicator.

Lily puttered around the house for a while, tidying rooms she had already tidied in other fits of restlessness when sleep eluded her, eager for something to do. Finally, when the sky was the dilute grey of dawn, she resolved to head to the castle instead, where she had a classroom in dire need of cleaning. She dressed distractedly in thick, knit stockings and one of James’ jumpers, which for at least a month more would be considerably oversized on her, and Apparated to the castle gates. The baby did appreciative somersaults as she landed, and she rolled her eyes affectionately, wondering why the little thing would possibly enjoy Apparating. Maybe it didn’t feel quite as claustrophobic if you were still in the tight confines of a womb, or maybe the little one had his father’s taste for adventure. She sort of hoped it wasn’t the latter.

Lily walked briskly to the castle, feeling refreshed by the cold damp of the Scottish winter air. Her steps echoed in the entrance hall, deserted in the wee hours of a Saturday morning. A few of the snoozy portraits startled, peeking one eye open to see what had disturbed their rest. She made her way quickly down the stairs to the dungeons, and to her classroom. A soft burbling noise filled the air, coming from the gargoyle fountain in the corner which supplied cold water in perpetuity, and from the two cauldrons of Wolfsbane in her adjoining office, their start dates staggered so that there would always be potion ready for Remus when the full drew near.

It was passing strange, to think of this as _her_ classroom, when to a greater extent it looked and felt the same as it had when she was a student. She kept it better lit than Slughorn ever had, numerous gaslights coming to life in their sconces along the walls as soon as she entered. She had moved the more troubling of the jarred specimens and ingredients to her private storeroom, seeing no reason to frighten the students with them, or risk the destruction of anything so valuable in the explosions that were, to some extent, an inevitability of Potions instruction and experimentation. After she had agreed to take the position at the end of August, though, everything had moved very fast, as she and James rushed to find a house in Hogsmeade, and she struggled to plan curricula for seven levels in under two weeks, while also teaching herself how to brew the none-too-simple Wolfsbane Potion. As a result, she had not given the old dungeon classroom the thorough cleaning and re-organization that it had already sorely needed when she was first being instructed here a decade prior.

Without hesitation, Lily began levitating apothecary jars of ingredients and stoppered bottles of solutions, four or five in a go, off the shelves that lined the room. In no time, the surfaces of the work stations were cluttered with displaced jars and the shelves were empty, unable to hide their collection of decades worth of dust and grime. With a series of well-practiced cleansing charms she had the worst of the caked dust and cobwebs gone, and Summoned a damp rag and some Mrs Skower’s All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover from a broom cupboard down the corridor and set to with a bit of good old-fashioned scrubbing.

As she scrubbed, she wondered if she was Nesting. When people talked about expectant mothers Nesting, though, they usually talked about painting nursery walls and obsessing over the perfect model of bassinet and hoarding toys and tiny socks and bonnets. She’d always been unconventional, she reckoned, why not Nest unconventionally? In her mind’s eye, Lily drew up a picture of the small bedroom at home, where her child would grow up. The walls were covered with a somewhat faded wallpaper that she reckoned had been there since the ‘50s or ‘60s, if the pattern of tesselating pastel diamonds were any indication. Ought they to repaint it? What sort of baby or child really gave a fig what color their walls were?

Had she cared? She could easily recall her childhood bedroom’s cantaloupe orange walls, as well as the lilacs and pinks of Petunia’s room. Now that she was an adult, and expecting her own child, her own parents’ commitment to the silly flower name theme struck her as very arbitrary. Would her child prefer a lily or petunia colored room to one with faded wallpaper? Somehow she doubted it. She wondered what shade Petunia had painted the nursery in her home in Surrey. She’d finally gathered the courage to ring Petunia the month before and at some point in their very strained six minute conversation, they had exchanged the information that they were both pregnant. Knowing Petunia’s husband, the child’s room would probably be the dullest, most predictable shade of blue or pink. The baby kicked and Lily chewed her lip, contemplating the possibility of rekindling her relationship with her sister. No doubt it would be easier to simply live and let live, but their children ought to grow up knowing their own cousin, hadn’t they?

Having gotten the stained rings from the bottoms of jars and canisters to disappear from the shelves, she dried them with a blast of hot air from her wand. On impulse, paint colors on her mind as they were, she tapped the nearest shelf with her wand and the woodgrain disappeared under a coat of precisely the shade of pastel orange that her bedroom in Cokeworth had been. The color looked out of place and a bit ghastly in the dim, stone-walled classroom and with another tap of her wand, it was replaced by Petunia’s lilac, which turned out to be even worse. _Tap,_ yellow. _Tap,_ red. _Tap,_ green. Indecisive, she left the higher shelf a sort of mossy, olive green and the lower shelf a classic inky blue, telling herself it would be easier to choose once the shelves were filled again.

Dusting them as she went, she set to returning all of the containers to the shelves, arranging them alphabetically within category or origin, rather than use or level. She wondered how long it had been since someone had thought to reorder this room, Slughorn had been Potions Master for a rather long time, she thought. Remus had given the Defense classroom a less thorough overhaul in September, but that wasn’t nearly as strange to see. The Defense Against the Dark Arts professor had changed yearly, sometimes not even lasting out a full academic year, for their entire schooling, so every few months the classroom would look a bit different, taking on some of the attitude of whomever was teaching.

Lily smiled to herself as she swiveled a canister of Sopophorous Beans so that the label faced outward. Reluctant though he had been at first, Remus was flourishing in front of a classroom. A ripple of guilt went through her at the years she’d spent blaming and fearing him, grateful that she had now been afforded the opportunity to become very close friends with him. By all accounts, he managed a good balance of being stern and supportive with his students, giving them ample chances to try their hand at practical lessons. By and large, the students admired him and looked forward to their Defense days, and Lily shared a grin with herself at the memory of how utterly baffled he had been when she’d pointed out that no small number of their pupils considered him eminently fanceable. _Positively dreamy_ , Sirius had insisted gravely when Remus had tried to deny it.

Sirius was having a bit more difficulty adjusting to peacetime than Remus, though that wasn’t too unpredictable, she reckoned. Sirius had always been something of a hothead and wartime had nearly given that an outlet, much as his chances to lash out were limited by maintaining his cover. It wasn’t quite that simple, though. The job at Hogwarts had allowed Remus to re-enter the familiar environs of Hogwarts from an albeit less-familiar angle, but Sirius did not have as smooth a transition. After all, he’d only ever been a rebellious Pureblood heir, a student, and then a soldier- _cum_ -spy. Finding a place for himself was proving a little more difficult.

He was thrilled to be with Remus, and overwhelmingly supportive of him, as if determined to make up for their years apart by being twice as diligent now. He had cried and laughed with joy at the news of Lily’s pregnancy, still somewhat amazed to be able to consider himself part of the Potter family again. When they had told him they’d like to elect him as the child’s godfather, she’d worried that he might hurt himself, so wide had he grinned. All that said, though, he was a bit in limbo. He and Regulus seemed determined to mend their relationship, but that was slower going. Lately, Sirius had been talking animatedly about their idea to co-author a book, from her understanding, something in between a memoir, an exposé, a historical analysis, a symbolic ‘piss off’ to the Pureblood trappings of their youth, and a discreditation, once and for all, of the enduring myth of blood purity. It sounded promising, but Lily privately thought they might have to streamline it a little if they wanted anyone to actually read it, and she couldn’t really see the whirling mania of Sirius Black not feeling stifled cooped up in a study with piles of manuscripts in need of editing.

Lily took a step back, crossing her arms thoughtfully and considering her progress. The shelves looked incredibly neater and cleaner, though she found she was still unsure about which color was better. Turning her back on the shelves, Lily turned her attention instead to the rather large wooden cabinet that stood against the opposite wall, within its doors a jumble of tools, books, and instruments to be loaned out to students as needed. Without hesitation, Lily began giving it the same treatment as the shelves, emptying it of its contents so that she could clean it up and reorder its contents.

As a student, Lily had seldom had reason to fetch anything from the loaner cabinet. She could remember only one occasion, when a spell Jamie had aimed at a Slytherin’s cauldron had been deflected, reducing her set of scales to a misshapen pile of metal. For what must be the millionth time, Lily marveled at the fact that not only had she wound up loving and marrying that prat, but that she missed him quite devastatingly at present. Mostly, she tried to put it out of her mind, or at least blame it on pregnancy hormone spikes, but when push shoved, she missed James terribly when he was away from home. She hated the prospect of admitting it to him, now when she no longer had good reason to worry. Maybe she just wasn’t used to the war being behind them; after all that time spent fearing something would happen to him, fearing that every parting might be the last time she was him alive, one couldn’t exactly just go back to being worry-free.

They had been lucky, Lily knew, so very, dreadfully lucky. Far too many of her students did not have complete families, having lost one or both parents to Death Eaters or to Azkaban or simply as collateral damage in the crossfire of a war they had been trying to keep well out of. Many of them had lost siblings, many still held onto hope that a missing loved one would turn up somewhere, alive and well. Some of her students were trouble-makers, as some children were always bound to be, but it was different than it had been in her school days. These kids were different than the Marauders, for instance, had been, most of them enacting some kind of need for power or rebellion, having grown up in the oppressive unfairness of wartime.

Lily was dreading telling James that she’d need him to stay home more once the baby came. Not just while it was little and needy, but in general. She supported his Quidditch, was proud of his gift and his enthusiasm and his dedication, but she was determined. Their child was one of the lucky few with two parents, and she’d be damned if it was going to come up with its dad off zooming around on brooms instead of behaving like a dad. James would never be much of a disciplinarian, she knew, and his boyish disregard for rules and decorum wasn’t going anywhere, but that wasn’t what she meant. He might try to argue that a kid would be proud to grow up with a famous Quidditch player as a parent, but Lily was of the opinion that his presence would be far more valuable.

Lily had been taking a precarious stack of books out from the cabinet, and didn’t manage to keep a few of them from tumbling to the ground. She set the others on one of the desks to be sorted and kneeled down to retrieve the others when one of them caught her eye, sending a prickle up the nape of her neck, and drawing her attention away from her worries about Jamie and their unborn baby. She would have recognized the shabby, dog-eared copy of _Advanced Potion Making_ by Libatius Borage anywhere, the distinct stain on the front cover as unmistakable as if it were one of her own freckles. She tried to tell herself that she was wrong, that one musty old textbook was much the same as the next, but she turned it over in her hands and grimaced. In the distinct cramped, rigid handwriting that had once written her a hundred letters each summer, on the bottom of the back cover, she found the words she had once watched a pale hand write, ‘ _this book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince_.’

Lily couldn’t recall if she’d been bold enough to tell him it was an ostentatious, stupid thing to write, that it was a nickname that never would have caught on in a million years, and that even if it did, it was poor form to nickname yourself. He had bought the book before it was assigned to them, in the middle of fifth year, and she reckoned she probably had kept her criticism to herself. Around that time, she would have been happy to see Severus claiming his mixed-blood status, even if it was in a silly, self-important sort of way. They’d both been thrilled by the book, excited by the more difficult potions in its pages, both eager even before their O.W.L.s to sink their teeth into the more challenging N.E.W.T. level material that sixth year promised. He had purchased the book second-hand and it had already been a little grotty even then, but that hadn’t mattered a whit to either of them.

Lily flipped through its pages, sitting back on her heels, overwhelmed by the sight of the margins crammed with Severus’ handwriting, mirroring the over-activeness of his adolescent mind. He’d been a terribly bright young man, for all his weaknesses, and no one looking at this book could deny it. He had misplaced it just before Christmas hols in their fifth year, Lily remembered suddenly, the pages jolting her memory. She’d all but forgotten it.

“ _I’d like my book back, Lily,” he’d said without preamble, appearing at her shoulder at lunch._

“ _What book?” she’d asked, through a mouthful of food, feeling a few steps behind. His face was blotchy and flushed, which she knew meant he was genuinely worried or angry._

“ _You know what book,” he’d said, his voice sharpening in a way it rarely did when he was addressing her._

“ _Oi, Snivellus!” James had called from where he sat, a little ways down the Gryffindor table and Lily had winced at his typically badly-timed interjection, “Leave Evans alone, why don’t you?”_

“ _Sod off, Potter,” Lily had snapped, without looking over her shoulder at James, “He’s not bothering me, but you are.”_

“ _Well, he’s bothering_ me,” _Sirius’ voice had chimed in, lazily, “How can we be expected to eat with his Slytherin stench hanging around?” A few people had snickered at the joke and Lily had watched Severus’ eyes flaring darkly in the Marauders’ direction._

“ _Sev, ignore them,” Lily had insisted, and his gaze snapped back to her, “You said something about a book?”_

“ _My potions book,” Severus had said, and Lily had heard the strain of worry in his voice. He’d saved up sickles and knuts for months so that he could get that copy of_ Advanced Potion Making _early and it wasn’t an overstatement to say he treasured it, “I thought you might have taken it by accident after yesterday’s lesson.”_

“ _I haven’t got it, Sev, I’m sorry,” Lily had said, with a sympathetic smile, she’d reached up and rested a hand on his arm, “I’m sure it’ll turn up, though, you probably just left it in your common room or someplace, yeah?”_

 _Severus hadn’t looked very convinced, but he’d returned her smile. It had soured an instant later when a spoonful of beans had hit his cheek with a_ splat _, setting off hoots of laughter along the table as James hollered, “Now you’ll_ have to _have a wash, Snivels, and do us all a bloody favor!”_

Lily hadn’t had occasion to dwell on that afternoon in years, it having faded into the background as a less important memory of Severus in light of their falling out a few months on and his death the following year. Lily wondered how in the world it had ended up here. Had it turned up after he was no longer around to claim it and its finder assumed by its shabby state that it was a school copy? Certainly if he’d found it, he would not have parted with it on purpose. By the time they had actually needed it for class in sixth year, things between them had already been damaged terribly and rather than see if he had found his book, she had sat on the opposite side of the dungeon classroom from him, diligently trying to brew even more perfect potions than his and avoiding his eyes. Lily flipped through the pages, trying futilely to tell from the contents of the margin notes whether he had written them at fifteen or sixteen.

Lily was startled from her thoughts by a soft knock on the open door to the classroom. Her head spun towards the door so fast her neck popped. Remus stood in the doorframe, tall and lean (though looking distinctly better fed than he had only months prior), his grey-shot hair combed neatly off his face. His right hand was still lifted in a loose fist where he’d rapped upon the door, and the crease between his brows gave away the concern he was trying to hide with a placid smile, “Morning, Vix,” he said, genially, “You--”

“Don’t you dare tell me I’m glowing,” Lily said sharply, drawing her wand in a mock-threat.

Remus held up both hands, but chuckled, “You’re doing whatever the opposite of glowing is, I promise you,” he said and Lily lowered her wand with a shrug, “I was actually just going to ask how you were doing.”

“Couldn’t sleep and our house couldn’t stand any more cleaning,” Lily explained honestly, “So here I am, Nesting away in a dungeon like a nutter.” Remus nodded sagely as he entered the classroom, admiring what she’d accomplished so far, and as he grew nearer, Lily realized that he actually wasn’t looking especially well. Certainly better fed and better groomed and in better spirits than he had been during the war, but wan and peaky despite all that, the shadows under his eyes appearing all the darker for how bright his irises had grown, the moon only days away, “Dropped by for your potion, have you?” Remus nodded with a long-suffering grimace, and Lily gestured with a jerk of her chin towards her office, “Cauldron on the left, go on, then.”

Lily looked back down at the book in her hands, tracing a finger over Severus’ affected inscription on the back cover, as Remus fetched a gobletful of Wolfsbane from her office. He took a seat at the desk nearest her, took a steadying breath, and downed the dose of potion in one go. He winced after, as if he’d taken a shot of particularly harsh spirits and said tightly, “No offense to the chef, but Merlin, this stuff is _foul._ ” Lily shrugged but didn’t answer and when Remus spoke again, his tone had changed.  The volume lower he asked, solicitous but uncautious, “Lily, are you sure you’re alright?”

“Of course,” Lily said, her own voice sounding unconvincing to her ears, “Just wish the baby would let me sleep,” she added, “Or eat.”

“Yes, that’s the thing,” Remus said, delicately, “I was worried when you didn’t turn up to breakfast. ‘Course, on a Saturday I knew you might stay home, but James would have my head, you know, if something happened to his pregnant wife on my watch and I hadn’t even checked.”

“I’m fine, Remus,” Lily insisted, still looking at the book instead of at him.

“I might believe that if you weren’t staring at a ratty old textbook like you’d seen a gho--” Remus choked on his words and for a second, Lily thought the potion was going to come back up. She hoped not, because without a doubt if he vomited, her sensitive stomach would follow suit. Lily chanced a sideways glance at him and saw his face had gone ashen, his eyes glued to the book in her hands. He wet his lips and said, more statement than question, “Is that Severus’ book.”

“Yeah,” Lily said, “It was in with the loaner copies, not sure how it wound up there.”

“Haven’t seen that thing in years,” Remus said and something in his tone piqued Lily’s curiosity.

“Why would you have?” she asked, examining his expression now, “Seen it at all, I mean? It’s not as if you and he were ever mates.”

Remus gave a dry, humorless snort, “Far from it,” he agreed, “I only recognize it because Prongs nicked it from him at school. Fifth year, it was, I reckon,” he added.

“ _James_ nicked it?” Lily repeated, incredulous, “What did he want with it? He never cared a whit about Potions, and he was rather good at it without cheating anyway!”

“It wasn’t about Potions, was it? It was,” he swallowed a bit uncomfortably at the recollection, “It was just, well, he was always scribbling in it, wasn’t he? And James and Peter got it in their heads that he was using it as some sort of _diary_ , not that that makes any sense in retrospect,” he shrugged helplessly, “I think they were hoping it would be full of deep dark embarrassing secrets about which they could mock him. It wasn’t--not that that stopped us, mind--he was just a conscientious student which was rather disappointing to all of us at the time, though we did get some good spells from it.”

“Spells?” Lily echoed.

“He’d written a bunch down in various places, invented them, probably,” Remus said.

Lily hadn’t known Severus had been inventing spells at fifteen, but it didn’t exactly stretch her imagination, “Like what?” she asked.

Remus screwed up his face a bit, trying to remember, looking like he’d sooner talk about anything else in the world but Severus, which was probably true. It was probably always going to be a bit of a sore subject between them, “Erm, _muffliato,_ ” Remus recalled, putting up one finger to count, “ _Langlock,_ er… oh, _levicorpus,_ hm--”

“ _Levicorpus,_ ” Lily repeated, her brain taking a second to dig up the memory of what the spell did. But, oh, what it found. That awful afternoon by the lake flashed in her mind, the image of James cocky and detestable at fifteen, Severus held aloft upside-down, as if by an invisible hand around his ankle, his thin lips twisting in fury around the word _mudblood_. Remus shifted uncomfortably, as if he was reliving it as well, “You mean _levicorpus_ was _his_ spell?” Remus nodded, “And James still… Merlin, that sodding _prat_!”

“He certainly was one, yes,” Remus said, “I’m not defending it, but you know now he’d never--”

“Of course, he wouldn’t, I know,” Lily said, shaking her head, “I just, sometimes I forget what an arse he can be.”

“Used to be,” Remus corrected gently, and Lily shrugged defeatedly. He regarded her for a minute and then asked carefully, “Vix, c’mon, tell me what’s up. You look so tired, like you’ve been carrying a great, heavy troll around with you and not a tiny little Prongslet,” he got off his chair and sat down, cross-legged, beside her, not quite managing to hide his wince at bending his aching joints. Once he was seated, hands resting on his knees, he leaned his head closer and said, “Talk to me.”

Lily gave a great sigh, scrubbing at her face with her palms, “It’s just…” she pressed her fingers against her eyelids and let the words come, “What are we thinking? Me and Jamie, _parents_? He’ll expect me to be the perfect mum, naturally, but who could ever live up to Euphemia, you know? I don’t know a thing about making pastries or hemming school robes or, or, or well, anything about being a mum! My parents both worked dull muggle jobs and I know I never saw my mum bake a thing, where would she have found the time? It’s not as though we had house-elves to do the washing or anything. And I have no designs on staying home for the next ten years raising the sprogs while James wins stupid bloody tournaments for the blasted Arrows!”

Lily wasn’t sure when her hands had left her face, but they were now balled in tight fists in her lap, and her mouth was babbling on without her permission, “Which is not to mention what in Merlin’s ruddy name sort of dad is Jamie going to be? Will he behave like a dad at all or just let our kid skive off so that I’ve got to always be the mean one? And what if we don’t _get_ the sort who wants to toss a Quaffle around and set off Dungbombs?” she nodded at the potions book in her hands, “What if they’re not a Marauding little Gryffindor, what if they’re a Slytherin, or a Hufflepuff, or they prefer schoolwork to Quidditch, or what if they’re none of that because they’re a Squib, and he never--”

“Merlin,” Remus tugged her into a crushing hug, “Shut up for a second, would you? Catch your breath, you’re breathing for two.” she could hear in his tone that he was trying not to laugh and for a second she nearly tore herself back to dig into him too while she was on a roll. But he was quite warm and he smelled faintly of tea and books and trees, and she felt rather small in his long arms and it was sort of nice and before she knew it her anger was slipping just out of her fingers and she slumped against Remus’ shoulder heavily, “That’s it,” he encouraged, patting the back of her head sort of uselessly, “Now, first thing’s first,” he said and his tone had changed. Lily hadn’t sat in on any of his lessons but she suspected it might be his professor voice, “You’re going to be a fantastic mother. Baking skill has no correlation to parenting ability, as you bloody well know. And even if it did! Woman, you’re the _Potions Mistress_ at Hogwarts, I reckon you could manage a batch of biscuits!” Lily shrugged and Remus squeezed her, “And second is James,” Remus released her, his hands still resting on her shoulders to urge her to look at him. His bright eyes were serious as he said, “He isn’t a stupid teenager anymore. Have you forgotten that he would do anything for you? And much as he loves you, he’s going to love that lucky little bastard in your belly even more.”

Lily couldn’t quite keep from smiling, but she still shrugged uncertainly, “But, Remus--”

“No,” Remus stopped her, “It does sound as though you two are due to have a chat about your expectations, but I am telling you,” he grinned, “This is going to be the most loved little shit in the world.” Lily smiled despite herself, pointedly ignoring her prickling eyes, “Do you know how I know that, Lily?” she shook her head, “Because,” Remus explained, and she realized his own eyes had gone a bit watery, “Even if this kid is such a hard to love, swotty, whingey little thing-- yes, even if it’s a Squib! --that Head-Boy-and-Girl, model couple Lily and James Potter want to wash their hands of it,” Lily opened her mouth to argue, but Remus finished, “Even _then_ , me and Padfoot would sooner die than see this child go un-pampered. Your baby will be fine, nay, _brilliant_ , understand?”

Lily pulled him into another hug, squeezing around his waist, tucking her face against his shoulder again as if to hide the tears in her eyes. Remus chuckled, but before either of them could get another word in, Lily’s stomach grumbled loudly and the baby shifted and kicked. Remus jumped in surprise and when Lily looked at him, he was beaming, “Blimey, I felt that! See? Prongslet wants mummy to quit fretting!”

Lily rolled her eyes, “No,” she said, climbing to her feet, “Just wants to know why I’m keeping him from his breakfast.”

Pulling himself up with Lily’s assistance, his knees _click_ ing loudly as they straightened, Remus said, “Well, breakfast won’t be over yet, c'mon, mummy,” he slung his arm over Lily’s shoulders and they left the classroom. The gaslights dimmed as they departed, the half-tidied room falling into darkness behind them.

Remus did not let go of her even when they’d seated themselves in the Great Hall, and Lily leaned gratefully into his warmth, “Hey, Remus?” she said, as she filled her plate up with food.

“Hm?” Remus asked, around a sip of tea, raising his eyebrows.

“You’re going to be a fantastic uncle.” She said, and when he smiled, she smiled, too.

 


End file.
